New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production - 
Colorado's State Univ.'s panels will cost less than $1 per watt

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14932&SectionID=4

Sept. 10, 2007 -- Colorado State University's method for manufacturing 
low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar 
Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed 
by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 
200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the 
average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.

Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost 
of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the 
globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated 
electricity.

Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar 
panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the 
standard high-cost crystalline silicon. Because the process produces high 
efficiency devices (ranging from 11% to 13%) at a very high rate and yield, it 
can be done much more cheaply than with existing technologies. The cost to the 
consumer could be as low as $2 per watt, about half the current cost of solar 
panels. In addition, this solar technology need not be tied to a grid, so it 
can be affordably installed and operated in nearly any location.

The process is a low waste process with less than 2% of the materials used in 
production needing to be recycled. It also makes better use of raw materials 
since the process converts solar energy into electricity more efficiently. 
Cadmium telluride solar panels require 100 times less semiconductor material 
than high-cost crystalline silicon panels.

"This technology offers a significant improvement in capital and labor 
productivity and overall manufacturing efficiency," said Sampath, director of 
Colorado State's Materials Engineering Laboratory.

Sampath has spent the past 16 years perfecting the technology. In that time, 
annual global sales of photovoltaic technology have grown to approximately 2 
gigawatts or two billion watts -- roughly a $6 billion industry. Demand has 
increased nearly 40% a year for each of the past five years -- a trend that 
analysts and industry experts expect to continue.

By 2010, solar cell manufacturing is expected to be a $25 billion-plus industry.














Get your daily alternative energy news

Alternate Energy Resource Network
1000+ news sources-resources
updated daily

http://www.alternate-energy.net


Alternate Energy Resource Network Blog
http://blog.alternate-energy.net/index.php



Next_Generation_Grid

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/next_generation_grid


Alternative_Energy_Politics

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Alternative_Energy_Politics


Tomorrow-energy

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/tomorrow-energy


Earth_Rescue_International

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Earth_Rescue_International



_______________________________________________
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel

Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html

Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/

Reply via email to